[Discuss] Estates

[fodder]

Robert Croson, Jr wrote:

> You have now completely undermined the entire underpinnings of the estate 
> system.

Sorry, I probably should have added something else earlier as what I 
posted earlier was not really complete (and still isn't!). I was 
thinking of 2 things - [1] plots of lands (where taxes go directly to 
whoever runs it) and [2] officials that knights (and their lords for 
that matter) will have to hire to keep the plots of lands running (have 
to pay maintanence for it).

I was thinking by giving knights rented plots of land. They would have 
something even more tangible to hold on to in the region. Pledge away? 
land gone. Pretty much Zip taxes

Estates (that bunch of obnoxious officials) of various sizes can only 
run so many plots of lands efficiently. Hence the number of plots of 
land could be set up so the lord cannot run all of them by his own band 
of officials. The lords get taxes from lands not rented out.. which his 
officials administers + a cut from the knights' taxes. Then a slice of 
his total share go higher (after region expenses, etc)

A lord obviously cannot give all the land out to 1 follower, seeing as 
the lord will only get a portion of taxes off that follower and none for 
himself from the lands directly! Not to mention the follower's band of 
officials will be smaller than the lords to start with.

However I do see your 2nd point. Not entirely sure how to go about 
addressing it. Problem with what I've written so far is the removal of 
anonymity for the individual knight.. In current system, the lord 
doesn't directly know who isn't doing nothing. In what I was thinking 
of.. the knight has to balance authority/production in his own plot of 
land and if the lord sees a list of who pays what to him (as opposed to 
all knights adding together to 1 chunk).. then he'll know who isn't 
doing anything. Not to mention the knight doing nothing will be dropping 
his own income much more than anyone else.

After that lot of waffle.. basically what I was trying to suggest in a 
hamfisted way is to somehow flesh out region description in game 
mechanics (eg. 20 pieces of land in a region.. 5 of those are dense 
woods, 1 of mines, etc), rather than have the odd 1 or 2 people writing 
an entry or 2 in the wiki once in the blue moon.

Come to think of it. Didn't I just make everyone a buro as well?